So you think you know your standards. . . [by David Lehman]

So you think you know your standards --
jazz standards, show tunes, the songs
in your head and on the radio,
the songs they are playing at the club
where Bogart and Bacall are having a drink
or Judy Garland is singing
with Mickey Rooney in high school,
the soundtrack of the movie of America as it was
if only as an idea in the minds
of some refugee kids on the lower East Side --

OK, here's your chance to test your mettle. Match lyricist with song:

Lyricist                                     Song

Otto Harbach                            How About You?
Arthur Freed                             Paper Moon
Gus Kahn                                 Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
Yip Harburg                              Our Love Affair
Sammy Cahn                            It Had to Be You
Ralph Freed                              Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Bonus points if you also the name the composer in each case (they include Roger Edens, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, Burton Lane, and Isham Jones).

When William Stafford was writng a poem a day, he was asked what he did when he wrote one that didn'tmeet his standards. "Then I just lower my standards," he would say. That's a good strategy, though we who want and even sometimes demand a raise, want to see the lift in all things, including standards, and to that end, and in the spirit of Francois Villon and "les neiges d'antan," we leave you with this immortal question:

Where are the poems of Quemoy and Matsu? You do remember Quemoy and Matsu, don't you? -- DL

Comments

[Mark T. Sheera]

Quemoy and Matsu--what 12-year-old, secretly afraid that the Democrats just might, in fact, be soft on Communism, as the Republicans alleged, wasn't relieved to find Quemoy and Matsu just waiting around to be signified by a Cold Warrior signifier like JFK? Whew, it was close; the Cuban missile crisis was still three years away, and Nixon was vaunting his five-o'clock shadow at Premier K--what to do, what to do? And then--Quemoy and Matus! In the nick of time! The Tooty and Muldoon of offshore China! Yay. The triple threat--Quemoy, Matsu, and Richard Dailey--would give the presidency to JFK. Quemoy and Matsu then disappeared into history, except for surfacing in 1968 to beat the hell out of protestors at the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

[The Best American Poetry]

Brilliant. I believe the Missile Crisis was just two years away (Oct 62) and may (like the Berlin Wall) have been due to Khrushchev browbeating the new president in Vienna in '61. I love the trio of Quemoy, Matsu, and Mayor Daley, except that it underestimates the power of Sam Giancana. But that is a quibble. I was eleven years old during those debates and have always been astounded at the role they played then and their subsequent disappearance from history. Thank you, Mark Sheera. -- DL

[Maryanne Reveera]

Okay, I know I'm young, but Quemoy and Matsu? I thought "Matsu" was where you get "Matsu balls"! JK. Seriously, though, what're you two playing here?

[Maddie Sue Kwimoi]

Aren't they Spanish? "Mi casa es Matsu casa"? Also, I think Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, and Lincoln had a Mercury named "None Of Your Business!" Oh well, as the critics used to say, "What hath Roth got?"